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Nokia's intent to release Windows Phone 7 devices first started being rumored last Septemmber, when former Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop became the handset manufacturer's CEO. In April, Nokia and Microsoft signed their agreement to partner on Windows Phone 7.
June 21 then brought Nokia's announced of the N9 (pictured), a high-end smartphone running the Linux-based MeeGo operating system. As our sister site LinuxDevices.com reported, the device features a 3.9-inch AMOLED (active matrix organic LED) screen, an eight megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss-branded lens, Dolby Sound, NFC (near field communication), and a Texas Instruments OMAP3430 processor.
Nokia's having hitched its wagon to Windows Phone 7 star made the N9 merely a well-endowed orphan, however. Elop emphasized that fact by brandishing the device's Windows Phone 7 successor (below) at a private meeting for the handset manufacturer's employees.
"Put away all cameras, turn off all recording equipment -- this is super-confidential and we do not want to see this on the blogosphere," Elop added. Before revealing the Windows Phone 7 device, he repeated "no pictures."
Yet just a few hours later, a video of the unveiling was leaked to the Hungarian website Technet.hu (see later in this story). Nearly 22 minutes long, this appeared to have been professionally recorded, complete with cutaways to slides, via a camera held above the audience.
Nokia publicity stunt or not, the video revealed details about the device code-named "Sea Ray." As noted by Elop, the Windows Phone 7 handset will include the same Gorilla Glass screen, "pillow-shaped" backing, and eight megapixel camera as the N9.
Nokia later confirmed that what the video appeared to show is true: Sea Ray will include the Windows Phone 7.5 update (previously code-named "Mango"), with new features such as multitasking, live tiles, turn-by-turn navigation, texting via voice, and better SkyDrive integration.
On July 18, another video of the Sea Ray -- purported, at least -- leaked on a Chinese online forum, showing the phone booting into Mango. (Though this video was later taken down, it had been archived by the WMExperts website and is also embedded at the end of this story.)
Nokia didn't give a date for release of the Sea Ray (some figured it might coincide with the company's annual Nokia World conference in October). However, it appeared the phone would, in honor of its manufacturer's special relationship with Microsoft, be the first to ship with Windows Phone 7.5 out of the box.
That honor was threatened on July 27 by KDDI, which said its IS12T would be the first phone to come with preinstalled Mango. Manufactured by Toshiba and Fujitsu, the device will be available in September, the Japanese carrier added.
Might that have prompted Nokia to move up its Sea Ray launch? That's a possibility raised by writer Arne Hess of the:unwired, who reports receiving an invitation to a Microsoft-Nokia event scheduled for Aug. 17. To be held during GamesCom in Cologne, Germany, the party will be "an event to remember" with "exciting actions and surprises," according to the invitation (below).
Hess theorizes that the 17th could be the official announcement date -- but not the sales start -- of Nokia's first Windows Phone 7 smartphone. He bases this on the fact that the invitation advertises a raffle of three Nokia phones, adding "as soon as available" in small print.
Background
Though Nokia's Sea Ray Windows Phone might have similar specifications to the MeeGo-based N9, it won't be exactly the same phone. A processor change from the OMAP3430 processor to a Qualcomm device will be necessary at the very least.
The initial crop of Windows Phone 7 devices, whose hardware specifications were tightly controlled by Microsoft, all featured Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 or 8650 processors. Both chipsets feature "Scorpion" application processors, but the QSD8250 supports only GSM, GPRS, EDGE and HSPA networks, whereas the QSD8650 supports both these and CDMA2000 1X, 1xEV-DO 0/A/B networks, according to the chipmaker.
A new Windows Phone 7 hardware specification unveiled at Microsoft's MIX11 conference in April added support for additional Snapdragon CPUs: the MSM7x30 and the MSM8x55. While still single-core devices, these processors allow OEMs to offer a wider range of clock speeds (from 800MHz on the MSM7x30 to 1.4GHz on the MSM8x55, according to Qualcomm), and they also provide Adreno 205 graphics -- said to offer over twice the performance of the Adreno 200 included with the earlier QSD8x50.
Jonathan Angel can be reached at jonathan.angel@ziffdavisenterprise.com and followed at www.twitter.com/gadgetsense.
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